


Incorrect Uses of Mistletoe

by 23Murasaki



Series: Everyone Lives! [17]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Agni is a nice person, Gen, Humans Are Weird, Lizzie and Soma should be besties okay, butlering is also difficult, demoning is difficult, everything is platonic, the prompt was 'mistletoe' how did i make this platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/23Murasaki/pseuds/23Murasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzie and Soma organize a Christmas party. Everything goes less badly that expected, given the people involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incorrect Uses of Mistletoe

Altogether too much of the demon’s time was spent in thinking the word humans in a vaguely upset yet condescending manner. He would have preferred to say it out loud, but that sort of nonsense was unbecoming a butler. Still, he thought it very loudly and vehemently when he opened the door only to find Lady Elizabeth and Prince Soma leading a mob laden with Christmas decorations.  
  
“Elizabeth, what are you doing,” said his young master without nearly enough inflection for it to be a question. Lady Elizabeth made a high-pitched noise, thrust the box she had been clutching at Agni – who had the decency to look a little apologetic – and then threw herself at her cousin in a flurry of ruffles and petticoats. Prince Soma grinned from his place atop a ladder.  
  
“We are decorating! Lady Lizzie had a great idea!” he declared, gesturing broadly with a length of very red ribbon. It crossed the demon’s mind that red was a less than pleasant color. Regardless–  
  
“Little Lady here said we were having a Christmas party because the young master doesn’t want a birthday party and if we helped decorate we wouldn’t have to play dress-up,” elaborated Bard, plucking tinsel out of Finny’s hair. “So we’re decorating!”  
  
“It’s lot’s of fun, it is!” Meirin added giddily. She and Lady Elizabeth’s maid both had their hair fixed into pigtails with something that had both holly and bells. The bells jingled when she bounced.  
  
“It’s stupid,” said the young master firmly. The demon nodded firmly. Agni tried to smile supportively at Lady Elizabeth and look sympathetic to the demon’s plight at the same time and wound up just looking amused by the whole thing. Prince Soma hopped off of the ladder and addressed Lady Elizabeth and the young master as seriously as he could.  
  
“But surely, we must be taught proper English customs, yes?” And despite all efforts to the contrary, that was the end of that argument.  
  
“Don’t worry, Ciel,” said Lady Elizabeth with a winning smile. “We’ll make sure to make everything super cute!”  
  
\------  
  
Demons definitely had no concept of cute. Not even of super cute. He did, however have a concept of too much too early. The entire manor seemed to be filled with things that sparkled, things that jingled, things that smelled strange, things that broke easily, and angels. And it was only the tenth of December.  
  
His young master seemed to be constantly veering between bored, annoyed, and amused with regards to all the shenanigans, though the last only really happened when something came crashing down on or close to someone’s head – which happened more often that it had any right to – or when Sebastian found himself performing his duties with a tinsel-encrusted star perched atop his head – at least it wasn’t a bonnet – curtesy, of course, of Lady Elizabeth’s brilliant ideas and Agni’s height. He had glowered at Agni in an attempt to silently enlighten the man of the cruelty of his sudden betrayal.  
  
“The original idea was to put one of the little angels there,” Agni had said, refusing to look at all remorseful. Upon closer inspection, Lady Elizabeth had a whole box full of little angel statues that could be attached to random things. The demon surreptitiously left them in the garden and watched Pluto bury them.  
  
\------  
  
It was December 20th, and the demon could not enter at least three rooms. It was probably his own fault for not making the jump to mistletoe at approximately the same speed as the other had, though. The plant had, for many centuries, served as a ward against evil spirits and dark magic, and it continued its old role even during such supposedly enlightened times.  
  
“Lady Lizzie said, you kiss people under it!” declared Prince Soma cheerfully. “It will make the party more fun, yes?”  
  
“I don’t think I want people kissing in my manor,” objected the young master. Prince Soma laughed at him then jogged away.  
  
“Very well, then! I will give Lady Lizzie kisses instead!” he called over his shoulder. The demon had never seen his young master run that fast or fail at punching that dramatically. Well, that was entertaining.  
  
He still couldn’t go into the room, though, which was troublesome because he had to dust and remove the seemingly multiplying little angel statues lying around. While he was pondering his next move, Agni materialized with a recipe for eggnog.  
  
“My friend, how is– oh.” His eyes fixed on the mistletoe in the doorway. “Perhaps... my prince was a little overzealous...?”  
  
“Yes,” said the demon firmly. “Yes he was.”  
  
“I see,” said Agni, deftly plucking the little bundle of plant from its place. “Couples in doorways would make it difficult for people to move around.”  
  
“... Exactly,” agreed the demon, making his swift escape. “I think there are some others. Could you put them in more reasonable places for me?”  
  
“Certainly!” said Agni. It really was nice when he didn’t question things.  
  
\------  
  
The party went... remarkably well, really. The guests were mostly well-behaved, no one did anything too ridiculous, he had managed to rid himself of all but one little angel statue, the mistletoe was safely out of his way so that he could walk around, Lady Elizabeth wore herself out and spent most of the night being more or less calm, nothing broke, and everyone had enjoyed the food. Now it was night, the guests had dispersed at least as far away as to guest bedrooms, and everything was silent. The demon set about taking down the rest of the decorations. It was time to return the house to its usual vaguely gloomy state.  
  
“Here, I got this one–” The demon leaned backwards off of his ladder and nearly hit his head on Agni’s head, given that the latter was right behind him, on a chair, reaching for the same awkwardly placed bundle of mistletoe he was reaching for.  
  
“You are supposed to kiss me, not concuss me, Agni,” he snapped. It took him a full second to process that he hadn’t said that quite correctly.  
  
“My apologies,” said Agni quickly, evidently taking much longer to process that particular slip-up. That, or he hadn’t noticed. It was easy to just assume he didn’t notice things.  
  
“I’ll get the rest of these,” muttered the demon. “Don’t you need to sleep?”  
  
“As much as you do, my friend,” Agni replied with a smile. “It will go faster if we work together.”  
  
“... If you insist.”  
  
It did go faster, and he got the opportunity to fluster Agni with stories about ancient druidic rituals and fertility cults and the pagan days of England. So many things had been made boring by modernity. They wound up staying awake, perched awkwardly on Sebastian’s bed with cups of hot chai because one story had reminded Agni of another story, and that was how a demon stayed up until sunrise on Christmas day listening to ancient fables about gods and monsters until the sun came up and it began to snow, an image out of a kitchy story itself.  
  
All in all, it was probably somewhat like what holidays were supposed to be. Maybe. He wasn’t going to ask around again.


End file.
